Head of Xbox Phil Spencer talks about huge hardware announcements coming to the company

THE head of Xbox sat down with news.com.au at the world’s largest video game conference to expand on the reasoning behind the company’s new consoles.

CONSUMER electronics are evolving at a rapid pace, offering customers frequent improvements in price, quality and innovation.

This is something that is very apparent to head of Xbox Phil Spencer and the reason why the company had a large focus on hardware at its 2016 E3 showcase in Los Angeles.

“If you got into a consumer electronics shop, you see people are starting to buy 4K TVs and this motion is why we decided to put a couple of new products on the market,” Phil Spencer told news.com.au.

These products are the Xbox One S console to be released in August and Project Scorpio, which will come next year.

Mr Spencer said the Xbox One S was about offering the mass market something that was a great price and did everything people wanted a gaming system to do.

“We really built this console for people still using the 360 or those outside the Xbox family,” he said.

The system will be 40 per cent smaller than the current console, will offer backwards compatibility and support 4K Blu-ray DVD and 4K streaming.

“We wanted to make sure we designed a box that plugs directly into your TV and does everything you want to do on the biggest screen inside your home,” he said.

“We also wanted a box that looked great in terms of size and industrial design.”

Opposed to the Xbox One S, Project Scorpio is for the more enthusiast player, offering the highest specs of console on the market to support both 4K gaming and high fidelity VR.

Mr Spencer said designing a high-end machine was always very important, but the company had to be very careful to ensure backwards compatibility was still offered.

“We see 4K gaming next as the next real inflection point. It’s happening on PC and people want to see on console, but the most annoying issue when people transition to a new console is having to start off at zero again,” he said.

“[This is why] when you decide Project Scorpio is right for you, everything will come with you and you won’t have to start building your library again.”

In addition to the two new consoles, Mr Spencer said Xbox had put a very big focus on the Play Anywhere Program, which is allowing customers to play games on both the console and Windows 10 devices.

“We have a lot of customers playing on both devices, but now when a game is released they have to decide if they buy it on PC or console and this shouldn’t be a barrier,” he said.

“If you rent a movie or play a song it moves with you between devices … the next logical step is you should only buy a game one time for multiple devices.

“Take Gears of War 4, if you buy it and want to go home (and) play on console 10 feet in front of TV and then maybe at work or on the road with your laptop, you will be able to pick it up and keep playing.”

Taking things one step further, Xbox has ensured its new controllers will work with console, PC and tablet.

“Back from the 360 controller, you could successfully use it on PC, but it was always wired because the wireless was different inside the Xbox and PC,” he said.

“So we said ‘PC has support from Bluetooth, so let’s add it to the exiting controller so when you buy it will keep the same wireless experience on all devices’.

“It fits with the strategy of taking your games with you, your friends with you on Live and now your controller can come with you too.”

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Matthew Dunn travelled to E3 as a guest of Microsoft